Under the title: Mass Executions in Saudi Arabia, on April 21, 2022, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights held a symposium via Twitter Live in conjunction with the third anniversary of the April 2019 execution.
Deputy Director of the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, Adel Al-Saeed, moderated the symposium, with the presence of the Executive Director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights Khaled Ibrahim, the political activist and member of the leadership body of the Salvation Movement, Mr. Hamza Al-Sharif, and the political activist Maan Al-Sharif.
Al-Saeed opened the seminar by noting that the mass execution carried out by the Saudi government in April 2019 was the second mass execution carried out during the reign of King Salman bin Abdulaziz. He explained that from the beginning of 2015 until the end of March 2022, Saudi Arabia carried out 1,002 executions. He also pointed out that more than 50 percent of all death penalties carried out since 2015 were based on the opinion and discretion of the judge and that they do not depend on a legal or legal text, which is called punitive sentences.
Al-Saeed explained that the first massacre carried out by the Saudi government was on January 2, 2016. Forty-seven people, including at least four minors, were executed. The social justice advocate Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and other young men who faced charges related to participating in demonstrations were also executed. While the second mass execution was carried out on April 23, 2019, it affected 37 people, including at least six minors: Saeed Al-Skafi, Salman Amin Al-Quraish, Mujtaba Nader Al-Suwaiket, Abdullah Salman Al-Sarih, Abdul-Aziz Hussein Sahwi, and Abdul-Karim Muhammad Al-Hawaj, along with those accused of participating in demonstrations. Thirty-five of the convicts were executed with Taazir punishment, while two were executed under the penalty of Hirabah. Al-Saeed referred to the mass execution carried out by Saudi Arabia in March 2022, the largest mass execution, which affected 81 people. The Ministry of Interior did not announce the type of executions carried out.
Al-Saeed pointed out that the mass executions show that the death penalty in Saudi Arabia is used in a retaliatory, abusive, and unjust manner.
The Executive Director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights, Khaled Ibrahim, said that the brutality of the Saudi executions had been exacerbated since Mohammed bin Salman became the crown prince. Ibrahim noted that the judiciary was used as a political tool and that the executions were part of a pattern. He also emphasized that there is a real fear for prisoners of conscience because Saudi Arabia previously executed peaceful demonstrators and activists. Ibrahim explained that there are no mechanisms to protect citizens in Saudi Arabia, referring to the case of activist Khaled Al-Omair, who was arrested when he went to file a complaint because of the violations he was subjected to.
In the absence of any internal accountability mechanisms, activists and defenders have only the available international ones and the international space, according to Ibrahim, who indicated that some of what this space has accomplished should not be ignored. Ibrahim said that the special rapporteur on the death penalty, Agnès Callamard, condemned the Saudi government in an investigation it opened into the Jamal Khashoggi case when it held it fully responsible for the extrajudicial killing.
Ibrahim stressed that change may be difficult and may require time, but this is the message that must be performed, and therefore the available mechanisms must be adapted to this end.
Political activist and member of the leadership body of the Salvation movement Hamza al-Shakhouri considered that the regime in Saudi Arabia is used to worsen the suffering of victims, especially by holding bodies. He explained that execution in Saudi Arabia is not a modern practice, and since the country's founding, citizens of different regions and tribes have been executed, and the bodies have been hidden since that time. Al-Shakhouri spoke about the suffering of families when they learned of the sudden execution through the media. He considered that several reasons push the Saudi government to hide the bodies, including not turning the victim and his burial place into a shrine of solidarity, and thus closing the cases with the implementation of the sentence. In addition, Al-Shakhouri considered that the mass attendance of the funerals, which was evident at the beginning of the popular movement, showed the falsehood of the Saudi government’s allegations about the charges he faces, such as murder, vandalism, and others, and therefore the fear of these masses prompted the government to stop handing over the bodies. Al-Shakhouri also explained that Saudi Arabia is trying to intimidate families and the rest of society from continuing their activity, defending human rights, or raising their voices, and is trying to say that the punishment for these activities is not only imprisonment or execution but an unknown fate.
Al-Shakhouri confirmed that the families live in uncertainty, as they wonder about what the victims have been exposed to. While some families do not believe that their beloved ones have been executed, others are wondering about how they were killed, what happened to the body, the possibility of selling organs from it, how they were buried and others.
The political activist Maan al-Sharif considered that in the last massacre in March 2022, there was a strong popular reaction abroad, and activists' protests and other activities due to the dissemination of information and facts, while there was an attempt to blind the previous mass execution. Al-Sharif considered that the death penalty is the most important file that must be cooperated to raise awareness and increase pressure because it is a punishment that has no return. He considered that there must be an organization of human rights work and the work of activists because the main goal today is to seek to protect the rest of the threatened, by introducing their issues and the violations they are exposed to.
At the end of the first part of the symposium, several attendees participated in asking questions as well as some interventions. That indicated that the recent events, including the arrest of the seven judges involved in many death sentences, confirm that it is not a just judiciary but rather dictates and politicization. The interventions called for arranging efforts to defend the victims.
Second Part
The second part of the symposium focuses on the issues of individuals currently facing the death penalty. Deputy Director of the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, Adel Al-Saeed, indicated that there is a lack of transparency in Saudi Arabia's official dealings with the execution file. He explained that the organization monitored several cases in which detainees face the death penalty. According to these statistics, 30 detainees face death sentences. Among them are those facing charges related to expressing opinions and demonstrating, and 5 of them are minors.
This list does not include those accused of criminal cases due to the lack of transparency and difficulty in accessing cases, and the organization was not able to access all cases in which individuals are facing charges related to political practice. In the mass execution carried out by Saudi Arabia in March 2022, the organization had only monitored 13 cases out of the 81 sentences that were executed. In addition, according to the organization’s monitoring, many foreign workers face death sentences but the organization has not been able to document them, and while the Saudi Human Rights Commission announced a moratorium on death sentences for drug crimes, the applicable laws have not been amended, and none of the individuals facing retrials have been retried. Final death sentences and they thus face an unknown fate.
The Executive director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights, Khaled Ibrahim, considered that efforts should be intensified with the available mechanisms, including the upcoming session of the Human Rights Council, working with countries to pressure Saudi Arabia, and seeking to stop countries’ support and support for these regimes, and activities in front of Saudi embassies.
Ibrahim considered that repressive governments hate bad propaganda, and therefore the media should be used as a tool in addition to all diplomatic and other means.
Activist Hamza al-Shakhouri, for his part, stressed the importance of cooperation and continuation of human rights work but questioned the possibility of the convictions and activities preventing the Saudi government from continuing with the upcoming executions. Al-Shakhouri considered that dissidents, human rights organizations, and activists should strive to unite to discuss more ways to stop the executions.
Maan al-Sharif recalled a speech by lawyer Walid Abu al-Khair: If the interest does not unite us, injustice will do. He said that the executions represent all injustice, and it is crucial to talk extensively about injustice and violations in all available ways, and every step may affect a cumulative action.